the capital after eight o'clock the next morning, or attempted to sit or meet more than three together, he would imprison them as disturbers of the public peace. Our old acquaintance, Baillie, beheld this amazing spectacle with consternation. "Thus," he exclaimed, "our General Assembly, the glory and strength of our Church upon earth, is by your soldiery crushed and trodden under foot. For this our hearts are sad and our eyes run down with water." Yet it does not appear that real religion suffered at all by Cromwell's innovations, either in Scotland or in England, for Kirkton says of the Kirk, "I verily believe there were more souls converted unto Christ in that short period of time than in any season since the Reformation. Ministers were painsful, people were diligent. At their solemn communions many congregations met in great multitudes, some dozens of ministers used to preach, and the people continued, as it were, in a sort of trance, so serious were they in spiritual exercises, for three days at least." Baxter, in England, though a decided enemy of Cromwell, confessed that, by his weeding out scandalous ministers, and putting in "able, serious preachers, who lived a godly life," though of various opinions, "many thousands of souls blessed God" for what was done. The proclamation of Charles, rendered abortive in the Highlands, was not without its effects in England. One Major Henshaw came over from Paris, and proposed to assassinate Cromwell as he went to Hampton Court. His plan was to get thirty stout men for the purpose. A young enthusiastic gentleman named Gerard undertook to procure twenty-five of them, and Colonel Finch and Henshaw were to bring the other five. Vowel, a schoolmaster of Islington, was very zealous in the plot, and aided in procuring arms; Billingsley, a butcher of Smithfield, engaging to seize the troopers' horses grazing in Islington fields. The soldiers were then to be fallen upon at the Mews, Charles II. was to be proclaimed, Rupert was to appear with a large force of Royalists, English, Irish, and Scots, and there was to be a general rising. Saturday, the 20th of May, was the day fixed for Cromwell's assassination; but before this wild scheme could be commenced, forty of the conspirators were seized, some of them in their beds. Vowel was hanged, and Gerard was beheaded on the 10th of July--the manner of the latter's punishment being thus changed at his own request, as being a gentleman and a soldier. [Illustration: THE GREAT HALL, HAMPTON COURT PALACE.]